
iass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSl? 



RVBAIYAT 

OF 

OMAR KHAYYAM 

THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA 



\ 



RVBAIYAT 

OF 

CM AR KHAYYAM 

THE ASTRONOMER-POET OFPERSIA 

Rendered into English Verse by 
EDWARD FITZGERALD 



WITH DRAWINGS BY 
FLORENCE LVNDBORG 




DOXEY'S 

AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK 

NEW YORK 





THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

FEB. 27 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS& *&*. No. 

COPY B. 



5 



A 



o 



Copyright, 1900, 
By William Doxey 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



/p^^tS^^^ 


*^p^j^ r ^T^«t^»'' r \J' T V^ 


m 


^W^ T cfc^V rr! 'v*\ 


I ' * A\JI v - **w 


Vk ;.jyv) • X/ \fyr (/y \£r 






i%%0> 






0^^Hf;\4 




Contents 






f/TiJ Sfeft 




PAGE 




vMjy^iw 


Life of Edward Fitzgerald 


7 


/^^sfo. ■'!'•) 


\\ ^^\ 


Omar Khayyam, by Justin Huntly McCarthy . 


35 


AjB / ', VjHfBjl 


ii /^' ,>v \ 


Glose upon a Ruba'iy, by Porter Garnett . . 


37 


r'T^yW^ 


<f~3Js-*. Tg^r 








»'' tJSSr 


Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, rendered into 






s. ' J^fut 


English verse by Edward Fitzgerald . . 


39 




U V i*5L/ 


Notes 


77 




7a " /%hv ■'« Sv ^ 


Life of Omar Khayyam 


93 


M^JOt\' •'• Ii! 




w 


4| 





7535ES 



H I I |l W I ' I I ' I ' I II I I U II II U U 



II I I I I II II II II II B II II II I I II II II II I I I 




Edward Fitzgerald 



pDWARD FITZGERALD, whom the world 
* L-/ has already learned, in spite of his own 
efforts to remain within the shadow of anonymity, 
to look upon as one of the rarest poets of the cen- 
tury, was born at Bredfield, in Suffolk, on the 31st 
March, 1809. He was the third son of John Pur- 
cell, of Kilkenny, in Ireland, who, marrying Miss 
Mary Frances Fitzgerald, daughter of John Fitz- 
gerald, of Williamstown, County Waterford, added 
that distinguished name to his own patronymic ; 
and the future Omar was thus doubly of Irish 
extraction. (Both the families of Purcell and 
Fitzgerald claim descent from Norman warriors 
of the eleventh century.) This circumstance is 



^^^O^^^^^^^^EE^^^^^^^^B 



" ii ii -rr 



" " '■ " " ■■ " " " ■' "' 



Ti ^ " u ii ij_ a a i 





Edward Fitzgerald 

thought to have had some influence in attracting 
him to the study of Persian poetry, Iran and 
Erin being almost convertible terms in the early 
days of modern ethnology. After some years of 
primary education at the grammar school of Bury 
St. Edmunds, he entered Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, in 1826, and there formed acquaintance 
with several young men of great abilities, most 
of whom rose to distinction before him, but never 
ceased to regard with affectionate remembrance 
the quiet and amiable associate of their college- 
days. Amongst them were Alfred Tennyson, 
James Spedding, William Bodham Donne, John 
Mitchell Kemble, and William Makepeace Thack- 
eray ; and their long friendship has been touch- 
ingly referred to by the Laureate in dedicating 
his last poem to the memory of Edward Fitz- 
gerald. " Euphranor," our author's earliest printed 
work, affords a curious picture of his academic 





■ n l i " n ii u u -u u U -u u u -p 



ii i i ii ii i i n i 



LJAJAJAJA ja^aSQSEJK^EEOa^ElSO^i 




Edward Fitzgerald 

life and associations. Its substantial reality is 
evident beneath the thin disguise of the symboli- 
cal or classical names which he gives to the per- 
sonages of the colloquy ; and the speeches which 
he puts into his own mouth are full of the humor- 
ous gravity, the whimsical and kindly philosophy, 
which remained his distinguishing characteristics 
till the end. This book was first published in 
1851; a second and a third edition were printed 
some years later ; all anonymous, and each of the 
latter two differing from its predecessor by changes 
in the text which were not indicated on the title- 
pages. 

" Euphranor " furnishes a good many character- 
izations which would be useful for any writer 
treating upon Cambridge society in the third 
decade of this century. Kenelm Digby, the au- 
thor of the " Broadstone of Honour," had left 
Cambridge before the time when Euphranor held 




m 



IT I I II " " " '■ " " ■■ '■ '■ ■■ " 



ii ii II U II 








Edward Fitzgerald 

his " dialogue," but he is picturesquely recollected 
as " a grand swarthy fellow who might have 
stepped out of the canvas of some knightly por- 
trait in his father's hall — perhaps the living 
image of one sleeping under some cross-legged 
effigies in the church." In " Euphranor," it is 
easy to discover the earliest phase of the uncon- 
querable attachment which Fitzgerald entertained 
for his college and his life-long friends, and which 
induced him in later days to make frequent visits 
to Cambridge, renewing and refreshing the old 
ties of custom and friendship. In fa<5t, his dis- 
position was affectionate to a fault, and he be- 
trayed his consciousness of weakness in that 
respect by referring playfully at times to " a 
certain natural lubricity" which he attributed to 
the Irish character, and professed to discover 
especially in himself. This amiability of temper 
endeared him to many friends of totally dissimilar 




.n ii u =m 




i i ii ii : 



" " ■■ '»' 



^^^^a^^^^^^^^s^^^^^^^^^^^^o 



Edward Fitzgerald 

tastes and qualities; and, by enlarging his sym- 
pathies, enabled him to enjoy the fructifying 
influence of studies pursued in communion with 
scholars more profound than himself, but less 
gifted with the power of expression. One of the 
younger Cambridge men with whom he became 
intimate during his periodical pilgrimages to the 
university, was Edward B. Cowell, a man of the 
highest attainment in Oriental learning, who re- 
sembled Fitzgerald himself in the possession of 
a warm and genial heart, and the most unobtru- 
sive modesty. From Cowell he could easily learn 
that the hypothetical affinity between the names 
of Erin and Iran belonged to an obsolete stage 
of etymology; but the attraction of a far-fetched 
theory was replaced by the charm of reading 
Persian poetry in companionship with his young 
friend who was equally competent to enjoy and 
to analyse the beauties of a literature that formed 





I I II I I ■■ " " " ■' " '■ '■ ■■ " 1 • " 



ii ii ,ii i i ii n i 



i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^o^^o^^^^^a 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 

a portion of his regular studies. They read to- 
gether the poetical remains of Khayyam — a 
choice of reading which sufficiently indicates 
the depth and range of Mr. CowelPs knowledge. 
Omar Khayyam, although not quite forgotten, 
enjoyed in the history of Persian literature a 
celebrity like that of Occleve and Cower in our 
own. In the many Tazkirdt (memoirs or memo- 
rials) of Poets, he was mentioned and quoted 
with esteem; but his poems, labouring as they 
did under the original sin of heresy and atheism, 
were seldom looked at, and from lack of demand 
on the part of readers, had become rarer than 
those, of most other writers since the days of 
Firdausi. European scholars knew little of his 
works beyond his Arabic treatise on Algebra, 
and Mr. Cowell may be said to have disentombed 
his poems from oblivion. Now, thanks to the 
fine taste of that scholar, and to the transmuting 




lUJLJUJLJJUA^JULJLJL yAJAJJLJAJJUAJAJAJAJLJA^Al^^ 




Edward Fitzgerald 

genius of Fitzgerald, no Persian poet is so well 
known in the western world as Abu-'l-fat'h 'Omar, 
son of Ibrahim the Tentmaker of Naishapur, 
whose manhood synchronises with the Norman 
conquest of England, and who took for his poetic 
name (takhallus) the designation of his father's 
trade {Khayyam). The RubcCiyydt (Quatrains) 
do not compose a single poem divided into a 
certain number of stanzas ; there is no continuity 
of plan in them, and each stanza is a distinct 
thought expressed in musical verse. There is no 
other element of unity in them than the general 
tendency of the Epicurean idea, and the arbitrary 
divan form by which they are grouped according 
to the alphabetical arrangement of the final let- 
ters ; those in which the rhymes end in a consti- 
tuting the first division, those with b the second, 
and so on. The peculiar attitude towards religion 
and the old questions of fate, immortality, the 





" i i i i n n '■ " ■■ n d » ■■ p ■■ ■■ ■■ n ■■ ■■ ■■ n — "■ 



II II P 3C 



^^^^a^^B^^^^^i^^^^o^^ ^^^^ 




Edward Fitzgerald 

origin and the destiny of man, which educated 
thinkers have assumed in the present age of 
Christendom, is found admirably foreshadowed 
in the fantastic verses of Khayyam, who was no 
more of a Mohammedan than many of our best 
writers are Christians. His philosophical and 
Horatian fancies — graced as they are by the 
charms of a lyrical expression equal to that of 
Horace, and a vivid brilliance of imagination to 
which the Roman poet could make no claim — 
exercised a powerful influence upon Fitzgerald's 
mind, and coloured his thoughts to such a degree 
that even when he oversteps the largest licence 
allowed to a translator, his phrases reproduce the 
spirit and manner of his original with a nearer 
approach to perfection than would appear pos- 
sible. It is usually supposed that there is more 
of Fitzgerald than of Khayyam in the English 
RubaHyyat, and that the old Persian simply 




m 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^n^^^^^^ 



i i H : II n II a ii iL 




Edward Fitzgerald 

afforded themes for the Anglo-Irishman's display 
of poetic power : but nothing could be further 
from the truth. The French translator, J. B. 
Nicolas, and the English one, Mr. Whinfield, 
supply a closer mechanical reflection of the sense 
in each separate stanza; but Mr. Fitzgerald has, 
in some instances, given a version equally close 
and exact; in others, rejointed scattered phrases 
from more than one stanza of his original, and 
thus accomplished a feat of marvellous poetical 
transfusion. He frequently turns literally into 
English the strange outlandish imagery which 
Mr. Whinfield thought necessary to replace by 
more intelligible banalities, and in this way the 
magic of his genius has successfully transplanted 
into the garden of English poesy exotics that 
bloom like native flowers. 

One of Mr. Fitzgerald's Woodbridge friends was 
Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, with whom he 





B I I II H H II U II II II U 11 ■ U ^1 H M ■ U II II 



II II 0= g 



^^^^^^Q^^^^^^^^O^^^^^^^^^^ 




Edward Fitzgerald 

maintained for many years the most intimate and 
cordial intercourse, and whose daughter Lucy he 
married. He wrote the memoir of his friend's 
life which appeared in the posthumous volume of 
Barton's poems. The story of his married life 
was a short one. With all the overflowing amia- 
bility of his nature, there were mingled certain 
peculiarities or waywardnesses which were more 
suitable to the freedom of celibacy than to the 
staidness of matrimonial life. A separation took 
place by mutual agreement, and Fitzgerald be- 
haved in this circumstance with the generosity 
and unselfishness which were apparent in all his 
whims no less than in his more deliberate actions. 
Indeed, his entire career was marked by an un- 
changing goodness of heart and a genial kindli- 
ness ; and no one could complain of having ever 
endured hurt or ill-treatment at his hands. His 
pleasures were innocent and simple. Amongst 





B " D " " ~~"~ 



ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii ii n: 



ygm^^^^^^^^^.^3Bm 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 

the more delightful, he counted the short coast- 
ing trips, occupying no more than a day or two 
at a time, which he used to make in his own 
yacht from Lowestoft, accompanied only by a 
crew of two men, and such a friend as Cowell, 
with a large pasty and a few bottles of wine to 
supply their material wants. It is needless to say 
that books were also put into the cabin, and that 
the symposia of the friends were thus brightened 
by communion with the minds of the great de- 
parted. Fitzgerald's enjoyment of gnomic wisdom 
enshrined in words of exquisite propriety was 
evinced by the frequency with which he used to 
read Montaigne's essays and Madame de Se'- 
vigne's letters, and the various works from which 
he extracted and published his collection of wise 
saws entitled "Polonius." This taste was allied 
to a love for what was classical and correct in 
literature, bv which he was also enabled to appre- 





it ii n ii ii ii ii ii ii n ii • ii h » ii ,11 ii ii ii ii ■ ii rm 



aUlUli. AWil A g a AWlWiLAWlL AAUkA^UIkA^LJLJUi 




UN 



Edward Fitzgerald 

ciate the prim and formal muse of Crabbe, in 
whose grandson's house he died. 

His second printed work was the " Polonius," 
already referred to, which appeared in 1852. It 
exemplifies his favourite reading, being a collection 
of extracts, sometimes short proverbial phrases, 
sometimes longer pieces of characterization or 
reflection, arranged under abstract headings. He 
occasionally quotes Dr. Johnson, for whom he 
entertained sincere admiration ; but the ponder- 
ous and artificial fabric of Johnsonese did not 
please him like the language of Bacon, Fuller, 
Sir Thomas Browne, Coleridge, whom he cites 
frequently. A disproportionate abundance of wise 
words was drawn from Carlyle ; his original views, 
his forcible sense, and the friendship with which 
Fitzgerald regarded him, having apparently blinded 
the latter to the ungainly style and ungraceful 
mannerisms of the Chelsea sage. (It was Thack- 





ii " ■■ " " ■ n '■ ■■ n ■■ ■■ "- 



" ■■ ■■ " n : i 



^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^O^E ^^^^^^^^^^^ 





Edward Fitzgerald 

eray who first made them personally acquainted 
forty years ago ; and Fitzgerald remained always 
loyal to his first instincts of affection and ad- 
miration. 1 ) Polonius also marks the period of his 
earliest attention to Persian studies, as he quotes 
in it the great Sufi poet Jalal-ud-din-Rumi, whose 
masiiavi has lately been translated into English 
by Mr. Redhouse, but whom Fitzgerald can only 
have seen in the original. He, however, spells 
the name Jallaladin, an incorrect form of which 
he could not have been guilty at the time when 

1 The close relation that subsisted between Fitzgerald and 
Carlyle has lately been made patent by an article in the His- 
torical Review upon the Squire papers, — those celebrated 
documents purporting to be contemporary records of Crom- 
well's time, — which were accepted by Carlyle as genuine, but 
which other scholars have asserted from internal evidence to 
be modern forgeries. However the question may be decided, 
the fact which concerns us here is that our poet was the nego- 
tiator between Mr. Squire and Carlyle, and that his corre- 
spondence with the latter upon the subject reveals the intimate 
nature of their acquaintance. 





\ 



^^^^o^^^^^^^^^a^E^E^^^^^^^^ 



3 " ■■ " " '■ H'-TTT 





Edward Fitzgerald 

he produced Omar Khayyam, and which thus 
betrays that he had not long been engaged with 
Irani literature. He was very fond of Montaigne's 
essays, and of Pascal's Pensees ; but his Polonius 
reveals a sort of dislike and contempt for Voltaire. 
Amongst the Germans, Jean Paul, Goethe, Alex- 
ander von Humboldt, and August Wilhelm von 
Schlegel attracted him greatly; but he seems to 
have read little German, and probably only quoted 
translations. His favourite motto was " Plain 
Living and High Thinking," and he expresses 
great reverence for all things manly, simple, and 
true. The laws and institutions of England were, 
in his eyes, of the highest value and sacredness ; 
and whatever Irish sympathies he had would 
never have diverted his affections from the Union 
to Home Rule. This is strongly illustrated by 
some original lines of blank verse at the end 
of Polonius, annexed to his quotation, under 




a " ii " " " a ii n ii ii 11 ii » ii ii 11 ■ ii ii 11 u -rr 



^^^Q^Q^^E BB^^E^OO^^^ ^E 





Edward Fitzgerald 

"^Esthetics," of the words in which Lord Palmers- 
ton eulogised Air. Gladstone for having devoted 
his Neapolitan tour to an inspection of the 
prisons. 

Fitzgerald's next printed work was a translation 
of Six Dramas of Calderon, published in 1853, 
which was unfavourably received at the time, and 
consequently withdrawn by him from circulation. 
His name appeared on the title-page, — a conces- 
sion to publicity which was so unusual with him 
that it must have been made under strong pressure 
from his friends. The book is in nervous blank 
verse, a mode of composition which he handled 
with great ease and skill. There is no waste of 
power in diffuseness and no employment of un- 
necessary epithets. It gives the impression of a 
work of the Shakespearean age, and reveals a 
kindred felicity, strength, and directness of lan- 
guage. It deserves to rank with his best efforts 




m 



" M li ii II II ii ii ii ii ' ii ii ii 11 ii II ■ II 11 ll ii ii ii 



'^AJAJIUAJA^AJAJAJLJAJJLJ^ 





Edward Fitzgerald 

in poetry, but its ill-success made him feel that 
the publication of his name was an unfavourable 
experiment, and he never again repeated it. His 
great modesty, however, would sufficiently account 
for this shyness. Of " Omar Khayyam," even 
after the little book had won its way to general 
esteem, he used to say that the suggested addition 
of his name on the title would imply an assump- 
tion of importance which he considered that his 
"transmogrification" of the Persian poet did not 
possess. 

Fitzgerald's conception of a translator's privilege 
is well set forth in the prefaces of his versions 
from Calderon, and the Agamemnon of iEschylus. 
He maintained that, in the absence of the perfect 
poet, who shall re-create in his own language the 
body and soul of his original, the best system is 
that of a paraphrase conserving the spirit of the 
author, — a sort of literary metempsychosis. Cal- 





^^^^a^^^^^^^^^^^a^^^^^^^^^^a 





Edward Fitzgerald 

deron, ^Eschylus, and Omar Khayyam were all 
treated with equal licence, so far as form is con- 
cerned, — the last, perhaps, the most arbitrarily; 
but the result is not unsatisfactory as having given 
us perfect English poems instinct; with the true 
flavour of their prototypes. The Persian was 
probably somewhat more Horatian and less mel- 
ancholy, the Greek a little less florid and mystic, 
the Spaniard more lyrical and fluent, than their 
metaphrast has made them ; but the essential 
spirit has not escaped in transfusion. Only a 
man of singular gifts could have performed the 
achievement, and these works attest Mr. Fitzger- 
ald's right to rank amongst the finest poets of the 
century. About the same time as he printed his 
Calderon, another set of translations from the 
same dramatist was published by the late D. F. 
MacCarthy; a scholar whose acquaintance with 
Castilian literature was much deeper than Mr. 





■' " ■ " II ■- " 



juajajaja ao^^^^^^^^^a^^^^o^^^^^o 




Edward Fitzgerald 

Fitzgerald's, and who also possessed poetical abil- 
ities of no mean order, with a totally different 
sense of the translator's duty. The popularity of 
MacCarthy's versions has been considerable, and 
as an equivalent rendering of the original in sense 
and form his work is valuable. Spaniards familiar 
with the English language rate its merit highly; 
but there can be little question of the very great 
superiority of Mr. Fitzgerald's work as a contri- 
bution to English literature. It is indeed only 
from this point of view that we should regard all 
the literary labours of our author. They are Eng- 
lish poetical work of fine quality, dashed with a 
pleasant outlandish flavour which heightens their 
charm ; and it is as English poems, not as trans- 
lations, that they have endeared themselves even 
more to the American English than to the mixed 
Britons of England. 

It was an occasion of no small moment to Mr. 





'I " " " » " '■ "- 



" ■■ ■■ " ■■ : 'I " " " " ■■ ■' " " " " i 



^^^^^^^^n^IS^^^M OI^^ ^I^E 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 

Fitzgerald's fame, and to the intellectual gratifi- 
cation of many thousands of readers, when he 
took his little packet of Rubd'iyydt to Mr. Quaritch 
in the latter part of the year 1858. It was printed 
as a small quarto pamphlet, bearing the pub- 
lisher's name but not the author's; and although 
apparently a complete failure at first, — a failure 
which Mr. Fitzgerald regretted less on his own 
account than on that of his publisher, to whom 
he had generously made a present of the book, — 
received, nevertheless, a sufficient distribution by 
being quickly reduced from the price of five 
shillings and placed in the box of cheap books 
marked a penny each. Thus forced into circula- 
tion, the two hundred copies which had been 
printed were soon exhausted. Among the buyers 
were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Mr. Swinburne, 
Captain (now Sir Richard) Burton, and Mr. 
William Simpson, the accomplished artist of the 





a a 11 u u jc 



^ng^^^^^^^^^^^m 





Edward Fitzgerald 



Illustrated London News. The influence exer- 
cised by the first three, especially by Rossetti, 
upon a clique of young men who have since 
grown to distinction, was sufficient to attract ob- 
servation to the singular beauties of the poem 
anonymously translated from the Persian. Most 
readers had no possible opportunity of discovering 
whether it was a disguised original or an actual 
translation ; — even Captain Burton enjoyed prob- 
ably but little chance of seeing a manuscript of 
the Persian Ruba'iyyat. The Oriental imagery 
and allusions were too thickly scattered through- 
out the verses to favour the notion that they 
could be the original work of an Englishman ; yet 
it was shrewdly suspected by most of the appre- 
ciative readers that the " translator " was sub- 
stantially the author and creator of the poem. 
In the refuge of his anonymity, Fitzgerald derived 
an innocent gratification from the curiosity that 





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



II II ' II II II =3C 



" " " " " ■■ a " " n — n- 





Edward Fitzgerald 



was aroused on all sides. After the first edition 
had disappeared, inquiries for the little book 
became frequent, and in the year 1868 he gave 
the MS. of his second edition to Mr. Quaritch, 
and the Ruba'iyyat came into circulation once 
more, but with several alterations and additions 
by which the number of stanzas was somewhat 
increased beyond the original seventy-five. Most 
of the changes were, as might have been ex- 
pected, improvements : but in some instances the 
author's taste or caprice was at fault, — notably 
in the first RubcCiy. His fastidious desire to avoid 
anything that seemed baroque or unnatural, or 
appeared like plagiarism, may have influenced 
him: but it was probably because he had already 
used the idea in his rendering of Jamfs Salaman, 
that he sacrificed a fine and novel piece of imagery 
in his first stanza and replaced it by one of 
much more ordinary character. If it were from 





" " " " '■ ■■ " " " ■■ '■ '■ ■■ " V 



II I I I I I I II [ 



^^^3Q ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 

a dislike to pervert his original too largely, he 
had no need to be so scrupulous, since he dealt 
on the whole with the Ruba'iyyat as though he 
had the licence of absolute authorship, changing, 
transposing, and manipulating the substance of 
the Persian quatrains with singular freedom. The 
vogue of "old Omar" (as he would affectionately 
call his work) went on increasing, and American 
readers took it up with eagerness. In those days, 
the mere mention of Omar Khayyam between two 
strangers meeting fortuitously acted like a sign 
of freemasonry and established frequently a bond 
of friendship. Some curious instances of this 
have been related. A remarkable feature of the 
Omar-cult in the United States was the circum- 
stance that single individuals bought numbers of 
copies for gratuitous distribution before the book 
was reprinted in America. Its editions have been 
relatively numerous, when we consider how re- 





" " " " " ■" '■ 



" " " '■ ■■ " " '■ " '■ " T 




£ BEB^^^^yy^BEEE^3Q 




Edward Fitzgerald 

stricted was the circle of readers who could 
understand the peculiar beauties of the work. 
A third edition appeared in 1872, with some fur- 
ther alterations, and may be regarded as virtually 
the author's final revision, for it hardly differs at 
all from the text of the fourth edition, which 
appeared in 1879. This last formed the first por- 
tion of a volume entitled " Rubaiyat of Omar 
Khayyam; and the Salaman and Absal of Jami; 
rendered into English verse." The Salaman 
(which had already been printed in separate form 
in 1856) is a poem chiefly in blank verse, inter- 
spersed with various metres (although it is all in 
one measure in the original) embodying a love- 
story of mystic significance ; for Jami was, unlike 
Omar Khayyam, a true Sufi, and indeed differed 
in other respects, his celebrity as a pious Mussul- 
man doctor being equal to his fame as a poet. 
He lived in the fifteenth century, in a period of 



II II I I I I I I 



" ■■ a ■■ ■' ■' " " " " ■' 



^^o^^^^^^B^^^E^a^^^^^^ 




Edward Fitzgerald 

literary brilliance and decay; and the rich exu- 
berance of his poetry, full of far-fetched conceits, 
involved expressions, overstrained imagery, and 
false taste, offers a strong contrast to the simpler 
and more forcible language of Khayyam. There 
is little use of Arabic in the earlier poet; he pre- 
ferred the vernacular speech to the mongrel lan- 
guage which was fashionable among the heirs of 
the Saracen conquerors ; but Jami's composition 
is largely embroidered with Arabic. 

Mr. Fitzgerald had from his early days been 
thrown into contact with the Crabbe family; the 
Reverend George Crabbe (the poet's grandson) 
was an intimate friend of his, and it was on a visit 
to Morton Rectory that Fitzgerald died. As we 
know that friendship has power to warp the judg- 
ment, we shall not probably be wrong in suppos- 
ing that his enthusiastic admiration for Crabbe's 
poems was not the product of sound, impartial 




m 




ii ii ii m: 



■■ " " ■' " n ■■ " " 



" ■■ : " ■■ '■ ■■ ' " " ■' '■ " I 



iUtUll AWlWlWlWlWlWlWlWlWlLAWil AWiLAV JLJUILJULJi 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 

criticism. He attempted to reintroduce them to 
the world by publishing a little volume of " Read- 
ings from Crabbe," produced in the last year of 
his life, but without success. A different fate 
awaited his " Agamemnon : a tragedy taken from 
^Eschylus," which was first printed privately by 
him, and afterwards published with alterations in 
1876. It is a very free rendering from the Greek, 
and full of a poetical beauty which is but partly 
assignable to ^Eschylus. Without attaining to 
anything like the celebrity and admiration which 
have followed Omar Khayyam, the Agamemnon 
has achieved much more than a succes cFestime. 
Mr. Fitzgerald's renderings from the Greek were 
not confined to this one essay ; he also translated 
the two CEdipus dramas of Sophocles, but left 
them unfinished in manuscript till Prof. Eliot 
Norton had a sight of them about seven or eight 
years ago and urged him to complete his work. 





II I I II II I I 



■■ ■' ■■ ■■ " d a » " □ " " » ' 



^^^^a^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B^^ 




m 



Edward Fitzgerald 



When this was done, he had them set in type, 
but only a very few proofs can have been struck 
off, as it seems that, at least in England, no more 
than one or two copies were sent out by the 
author. In a similar way he printed translations 
of two of Calderon's plays not included in the 
published "Six Dramas" — namely, La Vida es 
Sueno, and El Magico Prodigioso, (both ranking 
among the Spaniard's finest work;) but they also 
were withheld from the public and all but half a 
dozen friends. 

When his old boatman died, about ten years 
ago, he abandoned his nautical exercises and 
gave up his yacht for ever. During the last few 
years of his life, he divided his time between 
Cambridge, Crabbe's house, and his own home 
at Little Grange, near Woodbridge, where he re- 
ceived occasional visits from friends and relatives. 

This edition of the "Omar Khayyam" is a 





ii 'i ■■ " " " " " » : » " " ■■ " " " '■ " " " " ■' " " ■' 'i [ 



o^a^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 




Edward Fitzgerald 

modest memorial of one of the most modest men 
who have enriched English literature with poetry 
of distinct and permanent value. His best epi- 
taph is found in Tennyson's " Tiresias and other 
poems," published immediately after our author's 
quiet exit from life, in 1883, in the seventy-fifth 

year of his age. 

M. Kerney. 




m 




s 




My Youth lies buried in thy verses : lo, 
I read, and as the haunted numbers flow, 

My Memory turns in anguish to the Face 
That leaned o'er Omar's pages long ago. 

Alas for me, alas for all who weep 

And wonder at the Silence dark and deep 

That girdles round this little Lamp in space 
No wiser than when Omar fell asleep. 

Rest in thy Grave beneath the crimson rain 
Of heart-desired Roses. Life is vain, 

And vain the trembling Legends we may trace 
Upon the open Book that shuts again. 




s*^ 



v "M 



Glose upon a Ruba'iy 

(By Porter Garnett) 

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou 

Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! " 

Oft have the footsteps of my Soul been led 

By Thee, sweet Omar, far from hum of toil 
To where the Chenar trees their plumage spread 

And tangly vines of wild-grape thickest coil ; 
Where distant fields, scarce glimpst in noon 
content, 

Are lush with verdure quick upon the plough; 
Where trill of Nightingale beneath the Tent 
Of heaven sinks away to soft lament ; — 

There have I sat with Thee and conned ere 



A Book of Verses underneath the Bough. 

When from the city's raucous din new-freed 
I quaff thy wisdom from the clearing Cup 

Of Rubaiyat, then, even as I read, 

I seem with Thee, in Persian groves to sup 

On bread of Yezdakhast and Shiraz Wine 
That lifts the net of Care from off the brow. 

These words, that tongue the Spirit of the Vine, 

Break from the Veil, and lo ! the Voice is thine : 



D 




k 



Glose upon a Ruba'iy 

Then is my wish — would Fate that wish 

allow ! 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou. 

Although I tread the Wilderness of life, 
Thy song can waft me to that careless clime, 

Where enter in nor memories of strife, 

Nor ghosts of woe from out the Gulf of Time. 

There, by thy side, great Omar, would I stray, 
And drink the Juice that has forgot the Press, 

(A Pot, the Potter shaped but Yesterday — 

To-morrow will it be but broken Clay?) 
With only Thee the toilsome road to bless, 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness. 

When Thou dost scorn the waste and mourn 
the Rose, 

That dies upon the world's too sinful breast, 
In thy disdain a wondrous beauty glows, 

Unfolding visions of a Life more blest. 
Then from thy Naishapur in Khorasan 

I seem to wander, though I know not how, 
Within the glittering gates of Jennistan, 
Supreme Shadukiam I wondering scan : 

Though still I walk the Wilderness, I vow — 

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow ! 



<0 




RVBAlYATof « * 
OMAR KHAYYAM 
of miSHAPVR t i 



' ■ ' ■ ■ ."."■ .•■..• l M,. ' .-;:.!/l 



Wake ! For the Sun who scatter'd into flight 
The Stars before him from the Field of Night, 
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, 
and strikes 
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light. 



Before the phantom of False morning died, 
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, 

"When all the Temple is prepared within, 
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?" 





And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before 
The Tavern shouted — " Open then the Door ! 
You know how little while we have to stay, 
And, once departed, may return no more." 



IV 




Now the New Year reviving old Desires, 
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, 

Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough 
Puts out, and Jesus from the ground suspires. 



Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose, 

And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows: 

But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, 
And many a Garden by the Water blows. 





A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou 

Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow ! 



Some for the Glories of this World ; and some 
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; 

Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, 
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum ! 



Look to the blowing Rose about us — " Lo, 
Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow, 

At once the silken tassel of my Purse 
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.' 



'•• 




XXIV 



Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, 
Before we too into the Dust descend ; 

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, 
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and— sans End! 



xxv 



Alike for those who for To-day prepare, 
And those that after some To-morrow stare, 

A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, 
" Fools ! your Reward is neither Here nor There." 



XXVI 



Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd 
Of the two Worlds so wisely — they are thrust 

Like foolish Prophets forth ; their Words to Scorn 
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. 




What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? 
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence ! 

Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine 
Must drown the memory of that insolence ! 



XXXI 

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate 
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, 

And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road ; 
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate. 



XXXII 

There was the Door to which I found no Key ; 
There was the Veil through which I might not see : 

Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
There was — and then no more of Thee and Me. 



XXXIII 

Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn 
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn ; 

Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd 
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn. 



xxxiv 
Then of the Thee in Me who works behind 
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find 

A Lamp amid the Darkness ; and I heard, 
As from Without—" The Me within Thee blind!' 



xxxv 
Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn 
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn : 

And Lip to Lip it murmur'd — " While you live, 
Drink! — for, once dead, you never shall return." 




*m 



% 



Wmm. 













6 








s 


XXXVI 

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive 
Articulation answer'd, once did live, 

And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd, 
How many Kisses might it take — and give ! 

XXXVII 

For I remember stopping by the way 
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay 

And with its all-obliterated Tongue 
It murmur'd — " Gently, Brother, gently, pray ! " 

XXXVIII 

And has not such a Story from of Old 
1 Down Man's successive generations roll'd 
Of such a cloud of saturated Earth 
Cast by the Maker into Human mould ? 




EbmS 


^^3 








<tf^S 









Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit 
Of This and That endeavour and dispute; 

Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape 
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit. 



LV 

You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse 
I made a Second Marriage in my house ; 

Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, 
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. 



LVI 



«M- -L. « ■•■,-,•■•,.■ 



•HW1 

**>£ 



■i " i i r r.i i ■- ; ^i ii ■ 1 1 ■ in r i i v i^i i ii ■ . ■" r.i 



ii 1 1 



LVII 



Ah, but my Computations, People say, 
Reduced the Year to better reckoning ? — Nay, 

'T was only striking from the Calendar 
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday. 









LX 

The mighty Mahmud, Allah-breathing Lord, 
That all the misbelieving and black Horde 

Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul 
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword. 



LXI 

Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare 
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare ? 

A Blessing, we should use it, should we not? 
And if a Curse — why, then, Who set it there ? 



LXI I 

I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must, 
Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust, 
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink, 
To fill the Cup — when crumbled into Dust ! 






'.' t ~ r ^- m r~-f^':i-' ''•'?'. 




LXIX 



But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days : 

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 
And one by one back in the Closet lays. 



The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, 
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; 

And He that toss'd you down into the Field, 
He knows about it all — he knows — HE knows! 







LXXII 



U'\ 






And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, 
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, 
Lift not your hands to // for help — for it 
As impotently moves as you or I. 

LXXIII 

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead. 
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed : 

And the first Morning of Creation wrote 
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. 



LXXIV 

I! Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare; 
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair: 
Drink ! for you know not whence you came, 
nor why : 
Drink ! for you know not why you go, nor where. 




LXXVIII 

What ! out of senseless Nothing to provoke 
A conscious Something" to resent the yoke 

Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain 
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke ! 



LXXIX 

What ! from his helpless Creature be repaid 
Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd — 

Sue for a Debt we never did contract, 
And cannot answer — Oh the sorry trade ! 



LXXX 

Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin 
Beset the Road I was to wander in, 

Thou wilt not with Predestin'd Evil round 
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin ! 



& 





LXXXVI 

After a momentary silence spake 
Some Vessel of a more ungainly make : 

" They sneer at me for leaning all awry: 
What ! did the Hand then of the Potter shake? 



LXXXVII 

Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot — 
I think a Sufi pipkin — waxing hot — 

"All this of Pot and Potter — Tell me then, 
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot ? " 



LXXXVIII 

" Why," said another, " Some there are who tell 
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell 

The luckless Pots he marr'd in making — Pish ! 

s a Good Fellow, and 't will all be well." 



*x!*a% 





Yon rising Moon that looks for -us again — 
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane ; 

How oft hereafter rising look for us 
Through this same Garden — and for one in vain ! 



And when like her, oh Saki, you shall pass 
| Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass, 
And in your joyous errand reach the spot 
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass ! 



TAMAM 



■^iiiitiiiiumimii^^ ^£££i£iiiij£&£^ 



7S*£S 






11 II : II II TTTT 



M II II " " ii » 'I » " I' " ii » " 'i 'i " " "~d 




SJL 



Notes 

[ The references are, except in the first note only, to the stanzas of 
the Fourth edition.] 

(Stanza I.) Flinging a Stone into the Cup was 
the signal for " To Horse ! " in the Desert. 

(II.) The "False Dawn "y Subhi Kdzib, a tran- 
sient Light on the Horizon about an hour before 
the Subhi sadik or True Dawn; a well-known 
Phenomenon in the East. 

(IV.) New Year. Beginning with the Vernal 
Equinox, it must be remembered ; and (howsoever 
the old Solar Year is practically superseded by the 
clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Moham- 
medan Hijra) still commemorated by a Festival 
that is said to have been appointed by the very 



u i i ii i i u ii l i u n u ■ u u Li a ii ii n n ii » n 1 



o^^^a^o^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^o 




Notes 

Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose 
yearly Calendar he helped to rectify. 

" The sudden approach and rapid advance of the 
Spring," says Mr. Binning, " are very striking. 
Before the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees 
burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the 
Soil. At Naw Rooz {their New Year's Day) the 
Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in 
the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the 
Garden were budding beautifully, and green Plants 
and Flowers springing upon the Plains on every 
side — 

'And on old Hyems' Chin and icy Crown 
An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds 
Is, as in mockery, set — ' — 

Among the Plants newly appear'd I recognized 
some Acquaintances I had not seen for many a 
Year : among these, two varieties of the Thistle ; a 
coarse species of the Daisy, like the Horse-gowan; 




m 



n II l l ■! " '■ ■■ " ■■ ■' " '' " " a " ■■ » " '■ ■ ' '■ " '■ " ' 




tot 



Notes 

red and white clover; the Dock; the blue Corn- 
flower; and that vulgar Herb the Dandelion rearing 
its yellow crest on the Banks of the Water-courses." 
The Nightingale was not yet heard, for the Rose 
was not yet blown : but an almost identical Black- 
bird and Woodpecker helped to make up something 
of a North-country Spring. 

"The White Hand of Moses." Exodus iv. 6; 
where Moses draws forth his Hand — not, accord- 
ing to the Persians, " leprous as Snow" but white, 
as our May-blossom in Spring perhaps. Accord- 
ing to them also the Healing Power of Jesus re- 
sided in his Breath. 

(V.) Iram, planted by King Shaddad, and now 
sunk somewhere in the Sands of Arabia. Jam- 
shyd's Seven-ring'd Cup was typical of the 7 
Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 Seas, &c, and was a Divin- 
ing Cup. 

(VI.) Pehlevi, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia. 



» ii i i n ■■ '■ " ■■ ■■ ■' " ■■ ■■ " 



" y i' u " " " " 3c 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^y^o^^^^^^^^^^ 





Notes 

Hafiz also speaks of the Nightingale's Pehlevi, 
which did not change with the People's. 

I am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red 
Rose looking sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that 
ought to be Red ; Red, White, and Yellow Roses 
all common in Persia. I think that South ey in his 
Common-Place Book, quotes from some Spanish 
author about the Rose being White till 10 o'clock; 
" Rosa Perfecta" at 2; and " perfecta incarnada" 
at 5. 

(X.) Rustum, the "Hercules" of Persia, and 
Zal his Father, whose exploits are among the most 
celebrated in the Shahnama. Hatim Tai, a well- 
known type of Oriental Generosity. 

(XIII.) A Drum — beaten outside a Palace. 

(XIV.) That is, the Rose's Golden Centre. 

(XVIII.) Persepolis: call'd also Takht-i-Jam- 
shyd—Tw Throne of Jamshyd, " King Splen- 





B » II ii n II h g b ■' n ■ ii w C 



i i i i i i i i ii -n- 



^t^^Qt^^^^^^^^^^P^^^^^^^E 




Notes 

<afo/," of the mythical Peshdadian Dynasty, and 
supposed (according to the Shah-nama) to have 
been founded and built by him. Others refer it 
to the Work of the Genie King, Jan Ibn Jan — 
who also built the Pyramids — before the time 
of Adam. 

Bahram Gur. — Bahrain of the Wild Ass — 
a Sassanian Sovereign — had also his Seven 
Castles (like the King of Bohemia !) each of a 
different Colour : each with a Royal Mistress 
within; each of whom tells him a Story, as told 
in one of the most famous Poems of Persia, 
written by Amir Khusraw : all these Sevens also 
figuring (according to Eastern Mysticism) the 
Seven Heavens ; and perhaps the Book itself 
that Eighth, into which the mystical Seven tran- 
scend, and within which they revolve. The Ruins 
of Three of those Towers are yet shown by the 
Peasantry ; as also the Swamp in which Bahram 




m 



'■ g ■■ ■■ " » '■ ■■ ■» 



u '■ '■ " '■ ■' " •■■ ■■ ■■ " 



Q^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^EO.0^.^^ 




Notes 

sunk, like the Master of Ravenswood, while pur- 
suing his Gur. 

The Talace that to Heav'n his pillars threw, 
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew — 

I saw the solitary Ringdove there, 
And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, 
coo." 

{Included in Nicolas 's edition as No. 350 of the Rubdiyydt, and 
also in Mr. WhinfielcFs translation-] 

This Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among sev- 
eral of Hafiz and others, inscribed by some stray 
hand among the ruins of Persepolis. The Ring- 
dove's ancient Pehlevi Coo, Coo, Coo, signifies also 
in Persian " Where? Where? Where?" In At- 
tar's "Bird-parliament" she is reproved by the 
Leader of the Birds for sitting still, and for ever 
harping on that one note of lamentation for her lost 
Yusuf. 

Apropos of Omar's Red Roses in Stanza xix, 
I am reminded of an old English Superstition, 




m 



^^^^^E^^^^^B^^^^^^^^^^B 





Notes 

that our Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple " Pasque 
Flower," (which grows plentifully about the Fleam 
Dyke, near Cambridge,) grows only where Danish 
Blood has been spilt. 

(XXI.) A thousand years to each Planet. 
(XXXI.) Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven. 
(XXXII.) Me-and-Thee : some dividual Ex- 
istence or Personality distinct from the Whole. 

(XXXVII.) One of the Persian Poets — Attar, 
I think — has a pretty story about this. A thirsty 
Traveller dips his hand into a Spring of Water to 
drink from. By-and-by comes another who draws 
up and drinks from an earthen bowl, and then de- 
parts, leaving his Bowl behind him. The first 
Traveller takes it up for another draught ; but is 
surprised to find that the same Water which had 
tasted sweet from his own hand tastes bitter from 
the earthen Bowl. But a Voice — from Heaven, I 





II • II II =3C 



'■ '■ " — t 



^^^a^^^^^^^^^^^^o^^^^^^^^^^ 





Notes 

think — tells him the clay from which the Bowl is 
made was once Man; and, into whatever shape 
renew'd, can never lose the bitter flavour of 
Mortality. 

(XXXIX.) The custom of throwing a little 
Wine on the ground before drinking still contin- 
ues in Persia, and perhaps generally in the East. 
Mons. Nicolas considers it "un signe de libera- 
lite, et en meme temps un avertissement que le 
buveur doit vider sa coupe jusqu'a la derniere 
goutte." Is it not more likely an ancient Super- 
stition ; a Libation to propitiate Earth, or make 
her an Accomplice in the illicit Revel? Or, per- 
haps, to divert the Jealous Eye by some sacrifice 
of superfluity, as with the Ancients of the West ? 
With Omar we see something more is signified ; 
the precious Liquor is not lost, but sinks into the 
ground to refresh the dust of some poor Wine- 
worshipper foregone. 





" " ■■ " " ■' " " n '■ ■■ " ' ' 'i '■ " " ii " 



l^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Q 





Notes 

Thus Hafiz, copying Omar in so many ways : 
"When thou drinkest Wine pour a draught on the 
ground. Wherefore fear the Sin which brings to 
another Gain ? " 

(XLIII.) According to one beautiful Oriental 
Legend, Azrael accomplishes his mission by hold- 
ing to the nostril an Apple from the Tree of 
Life. 

This, and the two following Stanzas would have 
been withdrawn, as somewhat de trop, from the 
Text, but for advice which I least like to dis- 
regard. 

(LI.) From Mali to Mahi ; from Fish to Moon. 

(LVI.) A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A 
curious mathematical Quatrain of Omar's has been 
pointed out to me ; the more curious because al- 
most exactly parallePd by some Verses of Doctor 
Donne's, that are quoted in Izaak Walton's Lives ! 
Here is Omar : " You and I are the image of a 





II II I I II II 



j^^QQQ^^^^^^^^^^^^Q^^^^B 





Notes 

pair of compasses ; though we have two heads (sc. 
our feet) we have one body; when we have fixed 
the centre for our circle, we bring our heads (sc. 
feet) together at the end." Dr. Donne : 

If we be two, we two are so 

As stiff twin-compasses are two ; 
Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show 

To move, but does if the other do. 

And though thine in the centre sit, 
Yet when my other far does roam, 

Thine leans and hearkens after it, 

And grows ere6t as mine comes home. 

Such thou must be to me, who must 
Like the other foot obliquely run ; 

Thy firmness makes my circle just, 
And me to end where I begun. 

(LIX.) The Seventy-two Religions supposed 
to divide the World, including Islamism, as some 
think : but others not. 





n " n n a 



^J^^^^^^^mOffiBE^E 




m 



Notes 

(LX.) Alluding to Sultan Mahmud's Conquest 
of India and its dark people. 

(LXVIII.) Fanusi khiyal, a Magiolanthorn 
still used in India ; the cylindrical Interior being 
painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised 
and ventilated as to revolve round the lighted 
Candle within. 

(LXX.) A very mysterious Line in the Original : 

O danad O danad O danad O 

breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's 
Note, which she is said to take up just where she 
left off. 

(LXX V.) Parwm and Mushtari — The Pleiads 
and Jupiter. 

(LXXXVII.) This Relation of Pot and Potter 
to Man and his Maker figures far and wide in the 
Literature of the World, from the time of the He- 




m 



^^^3Q^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 





Notes 

brew Prophets to the present ; when it may finally 
take the name of " Pot theism," by which Mr. Car- 
lyle ridiculed Sterling's " Pantheism." My Sheikh, 
whose knowledge flows in from all quarters, writes 
to me — 

" Apropos of old Omar's Pots, did I ever tell you 
the sentence I found in ' Bishop Pearson on the 
Creed'? 'Thus are we wholly at the disposal of 
His will, and our present and future condition 
framed and ordered by His free, but wise and just, 
decrees. Hnth not ike potter power over the clay, 
of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, 
and another unto dishonour ■? (Rom. ix. 21.) And 
can that earth-artificer have a freer power over his 
brother potsherd (both being made of the same 
metal), than God hath over him, who, by the 
strange fecundity of His omnipotent power, first 
made the clay out of nothing, and then him out of 
that?'" 




m 



n M M ■■ ■■ '■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ » : '■ » ■■ ■■ " '■ - ■■ ■■ " " " ■' '■ ■' ■■ '■ " ' 



^^^^^^^^^^^a^^^^^o^^^^y^^^^^^ 





Notes 

And again — from a very different quarter — " I 
had to refer the other day to Aristophanes, and 
came by chance on a curious Speaking-pot story in 
the Vespae, which I had quite forgotten. 

QiXonKeoov. "A/cove, /xr] (p€vy K iv ^vfidpei yvvr\ irore 1. 1435 

Karvyopos- Tavr' eyu> /xaprvpo/uLai. 

3>t. 'Ovxivos ovv %x oiv T£,/ iTre/naprvpaTO' 

E?0' r] 2u/3ap>ts elirev, el vol rav tcopav, 
tt]u [xapirvpiav ravrriv eaeras, ev rax? ' 
4Tridea/j.ov iirpieo, vovv av €l%es rXeiova. 

" The Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to 
his bad treatment. The woman says, ' If, by 
Proserpine, instead of all this ' testifying ' (comp. 
Cuddie and his mother in 'Old Mortality!') you 
would buy yourself a rivet, it would show more 
sense in you ! ' The Scholiast explains echinus as 
(iyyos ti €K Kepd/iov." 

One more illustration for the oddity's sake from 





n ii tt 11 



" " " P ■■ 



i^^^^a^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 





Notes 

the "Autobiography of a Cornish Rector," by the 
late James Hamley Tregenna. 1871. 

" There was one odd Fellow in our Company — 
he was so like a Figure in the ' Pilgrim's Progress ' 
that Richard always called him the ' Allegory,' 
with a long white beard — a rare Appendage in 
those days — and a Face the colour of which 
seemed to have been baked in, like the Faces one 
used to see on Earthenware Jugs. In our Country- 
dialect Earthenware is called ' Clome 1 j so the 
Boys of the Village used to shout out after him — 
' Go back to the Potter, Old Clomeface, and get 
baked over again.' For the 'Allegory,' though 
shrewd enough in most things, had the -reputation 
of being 'saift-baked? i. e., of weak intellect." 

(XC.) At the Close of the Fasting Month, 
Ramazan (which makes the Mussulman unhealthy 
and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New 
Moon (who rules their division of the Year) is 





B " n —n- 



" " " " 



■■ a a " " ■' '■ 'i tt 



ii ii ii a 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 





Notes 

looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and bailed 
with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's 
Knot maybe heard — toward the Cellar. Omar 
has elsewhere a pretty Quatrain about the same 
Moon — 

" Be of Good Cheer — the sullen Month will die, 
And a young Moon requite us by and by : 

Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan 
With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky ! " 






Willi 



rrrtf-rf-tfi 



Omar Khayyam 

THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA 
(By Edward Fitzgerald) 

AMAR KHAYYAM was born at Naishapur in 
^-^ Khorasan in the latter half of our Eleventh, 
and died within the First Quarter of our Twelfth 
Century. The slender Story of his Life is curi- 
ously twined about that of two other very consid- 
erable Figures in their Time and Country : one 
of whom tells the Story of all Three. This was 
Nizam ul Mulk, Vizyr to Alp Arslan the Son, 
and Malik Shah the Grandson, of Toghrul Beg 
the Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the fee- 
ble Successor of Mahmud the Great, and founded 
that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe 




f m 



nnnnn iiiinmjnmnnr 



■ un.MirnillJITllllirnilli 



omm^^^^^a^^^^ 




M 



Omar Khayyam 

into the Crusades. This Nizam ul Mulk, in his 
Wasiyat — or Testa?7ient — which he wrote and left 
as a Memorial for future Statesmen — relates the 
following, as quoted in the Calcutta Review, No. 
59, from Mirkhond's History of the Assassins : 

"* One of the greatest of the wise men of Kho- 
rassan was the Imam Mowaffak of Naishapur, a 
man highly honoured and reverenced, — may God 
rejoice his soul ; his illustrious years exceeded 
eighty-five, and it was the universal belief that 
every boy who read the Koran or studied the tra- 
ditions in his presence, would assuredly attain to 
honour and happiness. For this cause did my 
father send me from Tus to Naishapur with Abd- 
us-samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ 
myself in study and learning under the guidance 
of that illustrious teacher. Towards me he ever 
turned an eye of favour and kindness, and as his 
pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, 




urn 



niiniiiiniiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiviriiuiiiimiiiiiiifiitiiriimin- 



iiinniim 




rrrrwrw^rw^rwrwr^rw^rw-rr^rwrw^ 



JSL 



Omar Khayyam 

so that I passed four years in his service. When 
I first came there, I found two other pupils of 
mine own age newly arrived, Hakim Omar Khay- 
yam, and the ill-fated Ben Sabbah. Both were 
endowed with sharpness of wit and the highest 
natural powers ; and we three formed a close 
friendship together. When the Imam rose from 
his lectures, they used to join me, and we repeated 
to each other the lessons we had heard. Now 
Omar was a native of Naishapur, while Hasan 
Ben Sabbah's father was one Ali, a man of austere 
life and practice, but heretical in his creed and 
doctrine. One day Hasan said to me and to 
Khayyam, ' It is a universal belief that the pupils 
of the Imam Mowaffak will attain to fortune. 
Now, even if we all do not attain thereto, without 
doubt one of us will ; what then shall be our mu- 
tual pledge and bond ? ' We answered, ' Be it 
what you please.' 'Well,' he said, 'let us make 




mn 



iirimimiriiiiiiMiririiniiuiir 



.iiiii.TiuiniitiniiiJiiiniiiii rm 



rrw^r^r^rwrw^rwrw^rwrw^r^rwr^wrWW^ 




55H 



Omar Khayyam 

a vow, that to whomsoever this fortune falls, he 
shall share it equally with the rest, and reserve 
no pre-eminence for himself.' 'Be it so,' we both 
replied, and on those terms we mutually pledged 
our words. Years rolled on, and I went from Kho- 
rassan to Transoxiana, and wandered to Ghazni 
and Cabul ; and when I returned, I was invested 
with office, and rose to be administrator of affairs 
during the Sultanate of Sultan Alp Arslan.' 

" He goes on to state, that years passed by, and 
both his old school-friends found him out, and 
came and claimed a share in his good fortune, 
according to the school-day vow. The Vizier was 
generous and kept his word. Hasan demanded 
a place in the government, which the Sultan 
granted at the Vizier's request; but discontented 
with a gradual rise, he plunged into the maze of 
intrigue of an oriental court, and failing in a base 
attempt to supplant his benefactor, he was dis- 




rani 



iiriiiintimiiiiiimiiiimiii|iiiini 



nil.,., i ....... ..mil i iiiiimnir 




a 



Omar Khayyam 

graced and fell. After many mishaps and wan- 
derings, Hasan became the head of the Persian 
sect of the Ismailians, — a party of fanatics who 
had long murmured in obscurity, but rose to an 
evil eminence under the guidance of his strong 
and evil will. In a. d. 1090, he seized the castle 
of Alamut, in the province of Rudbar, which lies 
in the mountainous tract south of the Caspian 
Sea; and it was from this mountain home he ob- 
tained that evil celebrity among the Crusaders as 
the OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS, and 
spread terror through the Mohammedan world ; 
and it is yet disputed whether the word Assassin, 
which they have left in the language of modern 
Europe as their dark memorial, is derived from 
the hashish, or opiate of hemp-leaves (the Indian 
bhang), with which they maddened themselves to 
the sullen pitch of oriental desperation, or from 
the name of the founder of the dynasty, whom we 




mil 



TUlfllUU 



.mm MiimitTi 



inuiiuiJiiiiMiiiuiiiiiiiiiiirn 



TrTrWrWrYrw^rw^rw^rwrw^rw^rw^rW^ 




^™x 



Omar Khayyam 

have seen in his quiet collegiate days at Naisha- 
pur. One of the countless victims of the Assas- 
sin's dagger was Nizam-ul-Mulk himself, the old 
school-boy friend. 1 

" Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier to claim 
the share ; but not to ask for title or office. ' The 
greatest boon you can confer on me,' he said, 
1 is to let me live in a corner under the shadow 
of your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of 
Science, and pray for your long life and pros- 
perity.' The Vizier tells us, that, when he found 
Omar was really sincere in his refusal, he pressed 
him no further, but granted him a yearly pension 

1 Some of Omar's Rubaiyat warns us of the danger of 
Greatness, the instability of Fortune, and while advocating 
Charity to all Men, recommending us to be too intimate with 
none. Atta> makes Nizam-ul-Mulk use the very words of his 
friend Omar [Rub. xxviii.], ''When Nizam-ul-Mulk was in 
the Agony of (Death) he said, ' Oh God ! I am passing away 
in the hand of the Wind.' " 




mil 




mill 



x 



Omar Khayyam 

of 1200 mithkdls of gold, from the treasury of 
Naishapur. 

"At Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khay- 
yam, 'busied,' adds the Vizier, ' in winning knowl- 
edge of every kind, and especially in Astronomy, 
wherein he attained to a very high pre-eminence. 
Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to 
Merv, and obtained great praise for his proficiency 
in science, and the Sultan showered favours upon 
him.' 

"When Malik Shah determined to reform the 
calendar, Omar was one of the eight learned men 
employed to do it ; the result was the Jaldli era 
(so called from Jalal-ud-din, one of the king's 
names) — ' a computation of time,' says Gibbon, 
'which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the 
accuracy of the Gregorian style.' He is also the 
author of some astronomical tables, entitled Zi'ji- 
Malikshahi,'' and the French have lately repub- 




mn 



iinn.......,...iiii l ii,iiwiiiiiiiiiiiini- 



LL1IH1TH T 11 T11FIT! I I I1H1H IltUITT 




flra^ 



Omar Khayyam 

lished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his 
on Algebra. 

" His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) 
signifies a Tent-maker, and he is said to have at 
one time exercised that trade, perhaps before 
Nizam-ul-M ink's generosity raised him to inde- 
pendence. Many Persian poets similarly derived 
their names from their occupations ; thus we have 
Attar, 'a druggist,' Assar, 'an oil presser,' &C. 1 
Omar himself alludes to his name in the following 
whimsical lines : — 

' Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science, 
Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned ; 
The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life, 
And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing ! ' 

"We have only one more anecdote to give of 
his Life, and that relates to the close ; it is told in 

1 Though all these, like our Smiths, Archers, Millers, 
Fletchers, &c, may simply retain the Surname of an hered- 
itary calling. 




iiimniimiiiiiin umimr 



riiLin i;u iiiiiiiiiui mi in in in 




nm 



Omar Khayyam 

the anonymous preface which is sometimes pre- 
fixed to his poems; it has been printed in the 
Persian in the appendix to Hyde's Veterum Per- 
sarum Religio, p. 529 ; and D'Herbelot alludes to 
it in his Bibliotheque, under Khiam : x — 

" ' It is written in the chronicles of the ancients 
that this King of the Wise, Omar Khayyam, died 
at Naishapur in the year of the Hegira, 517 (a. d. 
1 123); in science he was unrivalled, — the very 
paragon of his age. Khwajah Nizami of Samar- 
cand, who was one of his pupils, relates the fol- 
lowing story : ' I often used to hold conversations 
with my teacher, Omar Khayyam, in a garden ; 
and one day he said to me, ' My tomb shall be 
in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses 

1 " Philosophe Musulman qui a vecu en Odeur de Saintete 
vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siecle," 
no part of which, except the " Philosophe," can apply to our 
Khayyam. 




TrWl^W^r WrW^intW^rW^tW^tYrWWW^ 




2EL 



Omar Khayyam 

over it.' I wondered at the words he spake, but 
I knew that his were no idle words. 1 Years after, 
when I chanced to revisit Naishapur, I went to 
his final resting-place, and lo ! it was just outside 
a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their 

1 The Rashness of the Words, according to D'Herbelot, 
consisted in being so opposed to those in the Koran : " No 
Man knows where he shall die." — This Story of Omar re- 
minds me of another so naturally — and, when one remembers 
how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed — so 
pathetically told by Captain Cook — not by Doctor Hawkes- 
worth — in his Second Voyage. When leaving Ulietea, 
" Oreo's last request was for me to return. When he saw he 
could not obtain that promise, he asked the name of my 
Marat — Burying-place. As strange a question as this was, 
I hesitated not a moment to tell him ' Stepney,' the par- 
ish in which I live when in London. I was made to re- 
peat it several times over till they could pronounce it ; and 
then ' Stepney Marai no Toote ' was echoed through a hun- 
dred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question 
had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore ; but he 
gave a different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, 
' No man who used the sea could say where he should be 
buried.' " 




mn 



tii 111 nxc 



TLUlllHIIII limiiinmiimrirtm i i m.n 



iiiinniiii n i mm 



TrWrWrWr^rwrwrw^rw^rw^rw^rwrwrw^/^rr 




a 



Omar Khayyam 

boughs over the garden wall, and dropped their 
flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden 
under them.'," 

Thus far — without fear of Trespass — from the 
Calcutta Review. The writer of it. on reading in 
India this story of Omar's Grave, was reminded, he 
says, of Cicero's Account of finding Archimedes' 
Tomb at Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I 
think Thorwaldsen desired to have roses grow over 
him ; a wish religiously fulfilled for him to the pres- 
ent day, I believe. However, to return to Omar. 

Though the Sultan " shower'd Favours upon 
him," Omar's Epicurean Audacity of Thought and 
Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his 
own Time and Country. He is said to have been 
especially hated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose 
Practice he ridiculed, and whose Faith amounts to 
little more than his own when stript of the Mysti- 




id 



s 



Trwrw^rrrwrw^rwrw^rwrw^rvrw^rwrWW* 





Jj!L 



Omar Khayyam 

cism and formal recognition of Islamism under 
which Omar would not hide. Their Poets, includ- 
ing Hafiz, who are (with the exception of Firdausi) 
the most considerable in Persia, borrowed largely, 
indeed, of Omar's material, but turning it to a 
mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and 
the People they addressed; a People quite as 
quick of Doubt as of Belief ; as keen of Bodily 
Sense as of Intellectual ; and delighting in a 
cloudy composition of both, in which they could 
float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and 
this World and the Next, on the wings of a poet- 
ical expression, that might serve indifferently for 
either. Omar was too honest of Heart as well as 
of Plead for this. Having failed (however mis- 
takenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, 
and any World but This, he set about making the 
most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul 
through the Senses into Acquiescence with Things 



nm 



■ i ll ...i.i»iii«nniitMiniiiiimivtninii 



miiiumjiiiii.i.iiiuillllliiiiliii 



rrw^rwrwrwrw-wwrwrwrw^ 




inn 



Omar Khayyam 

as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain dis- 
quietude after what they might be. It has been 
seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was not 
exorbitant ; and he very likely takes a humorous 
or perverse pleasure in exalting the gratification of 
Sense above that of the Intellect, in which he must 
have taken great delight, although it failed to 
answer the Questions in which he, in common 
with all men, was most vitally interested. 

For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as before 
said, has never been popular in his own Country, 
and therefore has been but scantily transmitted 
abroad. The MSS. of his Poems, mutilated be- 
yond the average Casualties of Oriental Transcrip- 
tion, are so rare in the East as scarce to have 
reacht Westward at all, in spite of all the acquisi- 
tions of Arms and Science. There is no copy 
at the India House, none at the Bibliotheque 
Nationale of Paris. We know but of one in 




ran 



L 



jramjnnri cm i mur is e 



iLiF.imiiiimlllllllllllllilll^ 




A 



Omar Khayyam 

England: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the 
Bodleian, written at Shiraz, A. d. 1460. This 
contains but 158 Rubaiyat. One in the Asiatic 
Society's Library at Calcutta (of which we have 
a Copy), contains (and yet incomplete) 516, though 
swelled to that by all kinds of Repetition and 
Corruption. So Von Hammer speaks of his Copy 
as containing about 200, while Dr. Sprenger cata- 
logues the Lucknow MS. at double that number. 1 
The Scribes, too, of the Oxford and Calcutta MSS. 
seem to do their Work under a sort of Protest; 
each beginning with a Tetrastich (whether genuine 
or not), taken out of its alphabetical order; the 
Oxford with one of Apology ; the Calcutta with 
one of Expostulation, supposed (says a Notice 

1 "Since this Paper was written " (adds the Reviewer in a 
note), "we have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, 
printed at Calcutta in 1S36. This contains 43S Tetrastichs, 
with an Appendix containing 54 others not found in some 
MSS." 




^ 



mo 



Tnimuniinniuiiiii rax 



Til I mm in i i i i.. i i 11 mmillllll ""llllllll 



Trwrwrwrwrwrw^rw^Q^^ 




tnHB 



Omar Khayyam 



prefixed to the MS.) to have arisen from a Dream, 

in which Omar's mother asked about his future 

fate. It may be rendered thus : — 

" Oh Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn 
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn ; 

How long be crying, ' Mercy on them, God ! ' 
Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn ? " 

The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by 

way of Justification. 

" If I myself upon a looser Creed 
Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed, 
Let this one thing for my Atonement plead : 
That One for Two I never did mis-read." 

The Reviewer, to whom I owe the Particulars of 
Omar's Life, concludes his Review by comparing 
him with Lucretius, both as to natural Temper and 
Genius, and as acted upon by the Circumstances 
in which he lived. Both indeed were men of sub- 
tle, strong, and cultivated Intellect, fine Imagina- 
tion, and Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice ; 




hot 



nmnmD Ennmnmn; 



i ;n iiiiiiiiiui i iiimiinn 




^k 



Omar Khayyam 

who justly revolted from their Country's false Re- 
ligion, and false, or foolish, Devotion to it ; but 
who fell short of replacing what they subverted by 
such better Hope as others, with no better Revela- 
tion to guide them, had yet made a Law to them- 
selves. Lucretius, indeed, with such material as 
Epicurus furnished, satisfied himself with the 
theory of a vast machine fortuitously constructed, 
and acting by a Law that implied no Legislator ; 
and so composing himself into a Stoical rather 
than Epicurean severity of Attitude, sat down to 
contemplate the mechanical Drama of the Uni- 
verse which he was part Actor in; himself and all 
about him (as in his own sublime description of 
the Roman Theatre) discoloured with the lurid re- 
flex of the Curtain suspended between the Specta- 
tor and the Sun. Omar, more desperate, or more 
careless of any so complicated System as resulted 
in nothing but hopeless Necessity, flung his own 




ffiffiB 



rtii^numrtrmimiimiiiiimiiivmHiirr 



iii linn ii miuunji un mmm 




Omar Khayyam 

Genius and Learning with a bitter or humorous 
jest into the general Ruin which their insufficient 
glimpses only served to reveal ; and, pretending 
sensual pleasure as the serious purpose of Life, 
only diverted himself with speculative problems of 
Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit, Good and Evil, 
and other such questions, easier to start than to 
run down, and the pursuit of which becomes a 
very weary sport at last ! 

With regard to the present Translation. The 
original Rubaiyat (as, missing an Arabic Gut- 
tural, these Tetrastichs are more musically called) 
are independent Stanzas, consisting each of four 
Lines of equal, though varied, Prosody ; sometimes 
all rhyming, but oftener (as here imitated) the 
third line a blank. Sometimes as in the Greek 
Alcaic, where the penultimate line seems to lift 
and suspend the Wave that falls over in the last. 
As usual with such kind of Oriental Verse, the 




mil 



.mimiiimimiiiiirr 



zm 



umxi c og 



lniMiiinm 




^™x 



Omar Khayyam 

Rubaiyat follow one another according to Alpha- 
betic Rhyme — a strange succession of Grave and 
Gay. Those here selected are strung into some- 
thing of an Eclogue, with perhaps a less than equal 
proportion of the "Drink and make-merry," which 
(genuine or not) recurs over-frequently in the Origi- 
nal. Either way, the Result is sad enough: sad- 
dest perhaps when most ostentatiously merry : 
more apt to move Sorrow than Anger toward the 
old Tent-maker, who, after vainly endeavouring to 
unshackle his Steps from Destiny, and to catch 
some authentic Glimpse of To-morrow, fell back 
upon To-day (which has outlasted so many To- 
morrows !) as the only Ground he got to stand 
upon, however momentarily slipping from under 
his Feet. 




nmi 



■M.tniniiiniimiiiiiiiiuiniimiitiiii 



it mi mum 




^ 



Omar Khayyam 

[From the Third Edition.~\ 

While the second Edition of this version of 
Omar was preparing, Monsieur Nicolas, French 
Consul at Resht, published a very careful and 
very good Edition of the Text, from a lithograph 
copy at Teheran, comprising 464 Rubaiyat, with 
translation and notes of his own. 

Mons. Nicolas, whose Edition has reminded 
me of several things, and instructed me in others, 
does not consider Omar to be the material Epi- 
curean that I have literally taken him for, but a 
Mystic, shadowing the Deity under the figure of 
Wine, Wine-bearer, &c, as Hafiz is supposed to 
do ; in short, a Sufi Poet like Hafiz and the 
rest. 

I cannot see reason to alter my opinion, formed 
as it was more than a dozen years ago when 
Omar was first shown me by one to whom I am 




nm 



nmmxrnmnmn etznnzumrrrr 



'imiu.inMiinmLlllJUlllllllllIlt 




^k 



Omar Khayyam 

indebted for all I know of Oriental, and very 
much of other, literature. He admired Omar's 
Genius so much, that he would gladly have adopted 
any such Interpretation of his meaning as Mons. 
Nicolas' if he could. 1 That he could not, appears 
by his Paper in the Calcutta Review already so 
largely quoted ; in which he argues from the Poems 
themselves, as well as from what records remain of 
the Poet's Life. 

And if more were needed to disprove Mons. 
Nicolas' Theory, there is the Biographical Notice 
which he himself has drawn up in direct contradic- 
tion to the Interpretation of the Poems given in his 
Notes, (See pp. 13-14 of his Preface.) Indeed I 
hardly knew poor Omar was so far gone till his 
Apologist informed me. For here we see that, 

1 Perhaps would have edited the Poems himself some years 
ago. He may now as little approve of my Version on one side, 
as of Mons. Nicolas' Theory on the other. 




J^k 



!rirmiJiiiniMTiiiiiimrtmMniiniiiiM..Mii niiiiiiuitillliiiTTTn 




ra. 



Omar Khayyam 

whatever were the Wine that Hafiz drank and 
sang, the veritable Juice of the Grape it was 
which Omar used, not only when carousing with 
his friends, but (says Mons. Nicolas) in order to 
excite himself to that pitch of Devotion which 
others reached by cries and " hurlemens." And 
yet, whenever Wine, Wine-bearer, &c, occur in 
the Text — which is often enough — Mons. Nicolas 
carefully annotates " Dieu," " La Divinite," &c. : 
so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think 
that he was indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom 
he read the Poems. (Note to Rub. ii. p. 8.) A 
Persian would naturally wish to vindicate a dis- 
tinguished Countryman ; and a Sufi to enroll him 
in his own sect, which already comprises all the 
chief Poets of Persia. 

What historical Authority has Mons. Nicolas to 
show that Omar gave himself up "avec passion a 
l'etude de la philosophic des Soufis " ? (Preface, 




J 55 ^ 




Omar Khayyam 

p. xiii.) The Doctrines of Pantheism, Material- 
ism, Necessity, &c., were not peculiar to the Sufi; 
nor to Lucretius before them ; nor to Epicurus be- 
fore him ; probably the very original Irreligion of 
Thinking men from the first ; and very likely to be 
the spontaneous growth of a Philosopher living in 
an Age of social and political barbarism, under 
shadow of one of the Two and Seventy Religions 
supposed to divide the world. Von Hammer (ac- 
cording to Sprenger's Oriental Catalogue) speaks 
of Omar as " a Free-thinker, and a great oppo- 
nent of Sufism /" perhaps because, while holding 
much of their Doctrine, he would not pretend to any 
inconsistent severity of morals. Sir W. Ouseley 
has written a note to something of the same effect 
on the fly-leaf of the Bodleian MS. And in two 
Rubaiyat of Mons. Nicolas' own Edition Suf and 
Sufi are both disparagingly named. 
No doubt many of these Quatrains seem unac- 




J™L 



Braf 



iiniiLHUiMimmiiiiiTiiiniiiinnmiiLiiiiMii.inMiiiiMiiiiiiiiiMf 




J55i( 



Omar Khayyam 

countable unless mystically interpreted; but many 
more as unaccountable unless literally. Were the 
Wine spiritual, for instance, how wash the Body 
with it when dead? Why make cups of the dead 
clay to be filled with — "La Divinite," by some 
succeeding Mystic ? Mons. Nicolas himself is 
puzzled by some " bizarres " and " trop Orientales" 
allusions and images — " d'une sensualite quelque- 
fois revoltante " indeed — which " les convenances ? ' 
do not permit him to translate ; but still which the 
reader cannot but refer to " La Divinite. 1 ' 1 No 

1 A note to Quatrain 234 admits that, however clear the 
mystical meaning of such Images must be to Europeans, they 
are not quoted without "rougissant " even by laymen in Persia 
— "Quant aux termes de tendresse qui commencent ce qua- 
train, comme tant d'autres dans ce recueil, nos lefteurs, habitues 
maintenant a l'etrangete des expressions si souvent employees 
par Kheyam pour rendre ses pensees sur l'amour divin, et a. 
la singularite des images trop orientales, d'une sensualite 
quelquefois revoltante, n'auront pas de peine a se persuader 
qu'il s'agit de la Divinite, bien que cette conviction soit vive- 




J 55 ^ 



i i inrrti 



iTiimnj iiiinirm 



lllLJUIIUIIMMIIIHItlll "IIT7TT1 




PL 



Omar Khayyam 

doubt also many of the Quatrains in the Teheran, 
as in the Calcutta, Copies, are spurious; such 
Riibdiydt being the common form of Epigram in 
Persia. But this, at best, tells as much one way 
as another ; nay, the Sufi, who may be considered 
the Scholar and Man of Letters in Persia, would 
be far more likely than the careless Epicure to in- 
terpolate what favours his own view of the Poet. 
I observed that very few of the more mystical 
Quatrains are in the Bodleian MS., which must be 
one of the oldest, as dated at Shiraz, a. h. 865, 
a. D. 1460. And this, I think, especially distin- 
guishes Omar (I cannot help calling him by his — 
no, not Christian — familiar name) from_all_ other 
Persian Poets: That, whereas with them the Poet 
is lost in his Song, the Man in Allegory and Ab- 

ment discutee par les moullahs musulmans, et meme par beau- 
coup de lai'ques, qui rougissent veritablement d'une pareille 
licence de leur compatriote a l'egard des choses spirituelles." 




Emk 



n i iin.nnmHH.mariiuuuummMih.ii 



iiint.iiiiiiiiiniiiiniiiniiiiiii 



irw*w~wv™rw-Tirw~w^ r ^~ww~wwrw^rwvr 




5551 



Omar Khayyam 

straftion ; we seem to have the Man — the Bon- 
homme — Omar himself, with all his Humours and 
Passions, as frankly before us as if we were really 
at Table with him, after the Wine had gone round. 
I must say that I, for one, never wholly believed 
in the Mysticism of Hafiz. It does not appear 
there was any danger in holding and singing Sufi 
Pantheism, so long as the Poet made his Salaam 
to Mohammed at the beginning and end of his 
Song. Under such conditions Jelaluddin, Jami, 
Attar, and others sang ; using Wine and Beauty 
indeed as Images to illustrate, not as a Mask to 
hide, the Divinity they were celebrating. Perhaps 
some Allegory less liable to mistake or abuse had 
been better among so inflammable a People : much 
more so when, as some think with Hafiz and 
Omar, the abstract is not only likened to, but iden- 
tified with, the sensual Image ; hazardous, if not to 
the Devotee himself, yet to his weaker Brethren ; 




2EEL 



Tnuan unuummjg 



I lirrt tn i ii g iilllJl I 111 HllJIIlf 




^k 



Omar Khayyam 

and worse for the Profane in proportion as the 
Devotion of the Initiated grew warmer. And all 
for what ? To be tantalized with Images of sen- 
sual enjoyment which must be renounced if one 
would approximate a God, who according to the 
Doctrine, is Sensual Matter as well as Spirit, and 
into whose Universe one expects unconsciously to 
merge after Death, without hope of any posthu- 
mous Beatitude in another world to compensate 
for all one's self-denial in this. Lucretius' blind 
Divinity certainly merited, and probably got, as 
much self-sacrifice as this of the Sufi ; and the 
burden of Omar's Song — if not "Let us eat" — 
is assuredly — " Let us drink, for To-morrow we 
die!" And if Hafiz meant quite otherwise by a 
similar language, he surely miscalculated when he 
devoted his Life and Genius to so equivocal a 
Psalmody as, from his Day to this, has been said 
and sung by any rather than spiritual Worshippers. 




jm^ 



niiimiiiiimLiiiuniiiMiiriTiiniiniifinrriiiMiiii.iiJiiiiMiiiiJuiiiinnin 







u 



Omar Khayyam 

However, as there is some traditional presump- 
tion, and certainly the opinion of some learned 
men, in favour of Omar's being a Sufi — and even 
something of a Saint — those who please may so 
interpret his Wine and Cup-bearer. On the other 
hand, as there is far more historical certainty of 
his being a Philosopher, of scientific Insight and 
Ability far beyond that of the Age and Country he 
lived in ; of such moderate worldly Ambition as 
becomes a Philosopher, and such moderate wants 
as rarely satisfy a Debauchee ; other readers may 
be content to believe with me that, while the Wine 
Omar celebrates is simply the Juice of the Grape, 
he bragg'd more than he drank of it, in very defi- 
ance perhaps of that Spiritual Wine which left its 
Votaries sunk in Hypocrisy or Disgust. 




5ml 



